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On Friday, an official report from the US Department of Labor on the state of the national labor market was released. It became known that in April the number of jobs had decreased by 20.5 million. The unemployment rate has increased too, the rate has grown to 14.7% (in March it was 4.4%).

Both macroeconomic indicators have shown a kind of anti-record, but they have turned to be better than the values predicted by experts.

The following figures appeared in the consensus forecast: an unemployment rate – 16%, decrease in the number of jobs – 22 million. The reason for such a catastrophic situation on the labor market is obvious to everyone – the notorious coronavirus pandemic, which made all able-bodied people to stay at their homes.

Prior to the global quarantine in the United States, unemployment was at its half-century low and amounted to3.5%.

In April, figures of the US cuts by economic sectors looked like:

hotel and restaurant business reduced the number of jobs by 7.6 million;

retail chains – by 2.1 million employees;

healthcare – by 1.4 vacancies;

manufacturing enterprises – by 1.33 million people;

construction sector – by 1 million jobs.

The average hourly wage in the United States grew by 4.7% in April ($ 1.34). So, it can be concluded that low-income employees have lost their jobs. By the way, compared with April last year, the growth rate has totaled 7.9%.

The average working week has increased too: from 34.1 hours in March to 34.2 in April.

The material was prepared with the participation of Katya Wilson,
a leading analyst of the brokerage company UFT Group